


Secret Rendezvous

by Schnaucl (Onetrackmind)



Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-27
Updated: 2008-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-21 04:10:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/593306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onetrackmind/pseuds/Schnaucl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie finds out about Don's secret rendezvous</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secret Rendezvous

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta, knotted_rose.

When Don leaves the synagogue his newfound peace is abruptly shattered by the sight of his little brother standing outside looking hurt and a little lost. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Charlie asks softly. “I thought we were supposed to share things like this.”  
  
“Could we not talk about this here?” His voice is sharper than he meant it to be, and he sees Charlie flinch. Great, another thing to feel guilty about. Most of the time he manages a neat trick of cognitive dissonance, he can still be a good man, even a sort of newly pious man, and yet he can also have sex with his brother. Most of the time, both of these things can be true. He can enforce the law even while he breaks it and still be a good man. It’s not just about sex, after all. There’s love there, too. Enough love to make the risk worth it. But here, on the steps of the Temple, it’s just too much to take. Here he cannot be both a man on the way to a kind of piety and a man who fucks his brother.   
  
“Fine.” Charlie’s lips compress into a thin line, but he lets Don lead them back to the parking lot.   
  
“I’ll meet you at the apartment,” Don says, and Charlie nods and gets into his Prius, parked right next to Don’s SUV.  
  
On the drive back to his apartment Don tries to think what he’ll say to Charlie. He’s not sure that he can find a way to explain without being hurtful. Even post-therapy, mid-therapy, now? No one would ever accuse him of being good with words and there was no way for actions to explain this. By the time he reaches home he’s no closer to having an explanation than he was the moment he saw Charlie waiting for him outside the synagogue.   
  
He finds Charlie sitting on his couch, elbows on his knees, chin propped in his hands. “Beer first,” Don says, because it buys him a few more seconds and because it might help.   
  
He returns from the kitchen with two cold bottles of Blue Moon and offers one to Charlie, who hesitates, but then accepts it. Don sits down in the chair across from him and there’s an uncomfortable silence. “So?” Charlie asks finally. “Why didn’t you tell me?”  
  
“I—“ but he can’t find the words. He never can. “I don’t know.”  
  
“There has to be a reason. Even _Larry_ knew you were going back to Temple. We’re together now, we’re –“ and now it’s Charlie who can’t find the words. But they never could, not for this. Boyfriends? Lovers? Neither word encompasses what this is. So Charlie is reduced to waving his hands between the two of them and for just a moment Don wonders that Charlie has never found some mathematical term for what they are. “We’re supposed to talk about things like this. I’m not supposed to find out from _Larry_ that you’ve suddenly found religion! Have been finding it for a while now, apparently!”  
  
“Look, Charlie, I’m sorry I didn’t say anything, okay? I just—I thought you’d treat it like you do magic, you know? You always – you always have to find the strings and explain how things really are. You can’t just -- _believe_ and right now I need to believe. I need to believe in something bigger than myself, bigger than the FBI. Bigger than us.”  
  
Charlie is quiet for a moment, digesting that and Don struggles to read his expression, to see if Charlie understands. “You couldn’t trust me to respect your need?”  
  
Don sighs. “Charlie—c’mon, respecting the beliefs of others has never been your strong suit.” It’s the wrong thing to say, and he knows it even before the words are out of his mouth. But it’s also true, and it’s one of the reasons he didn’t tell Charlie. Charlie wouldn’t laugh at him, exactly, but Don was sure he’d try and explain how faith was illogical. Judaism may be one of the most logical religions, but Charlie’s still stopped going to temple as soon as he’d completed his Bar Mitzvah.   
  
“Thanks,” Charlie says, and Don can hear the hurt in his voice.   
  
“Charlie --” and he’s not really sure what to say after that.   
  
“I thought you were having an affair,” Charlie says quietly.   
  
And now he’s the one who’s hurt and angry. “ _What_? How—why would you even think that? “  
  
“Why? Because you’re sneaking off and having these secret meetings, your phone isn’t on, no one seems to know where you are, you make up some excuse when I ask you about it, Colby gave me some line about how you were probably off with some chick, what was I supposed to think? Your breakup with Robin wasn’t all that long ago. You have to admit, your track record in the fidelity department isn’t great. It already looks odd that you’re not dating someone and you can hardly say you’re in a relationship with your brother. You tell me, Don, what makes more sense, you sneaking off to fuck someone or you making clandestine trips to the synagogue?”  
  
“You really think I’d cheat on you?”  
  
“Did Kim?” He flinches, but Charlie looks miserable enough as he says it he’s pretty sure he isn’t saying it just to hurt Don. “You were engaged, Don. You were going to marry her. And you still cheated on her. And then I find out you’re going to temple without telling me, Dad says you feel like something in your life is missing and I…” Charlie looks down at the floor.   
  
Why is it no one he talks to can keep their damn mouth shut?   
  
“I thought I wasn’t enough. Or maybe—“ he scrunches his face. “Maybe too much.” His voice is rough now, and his eyes over bright. “I thought maybe it was finally too much for you. I thought maybe the secrecy – the shame – I thought maybe it finally got to you. I thought maybe you were turning to God because of what we did. What we are.”  
  
Don gets up and sits down on the couch next to Charlie, and all feels now is tired, and maybe a little frustrated. “It’s not always about you, Charlie.”  
  
“I know that, I—“  
  
“Let me finish. Lately, no, for a while now, I’ve felt like something is missing. I’ve felt – lost. This whole thing with McGowan brought up a lot of things that I’m still trying to work through. Things about me and my work and my life, and I realized I need something – more.” He finally looks at Charlie and takes his hand. “I love you, very much. I won’t lie to you and say there aren’t moments when the shame – we’re _brothers_. And it kills me sometimes that I can’t tell people about us. I want to be able to tell Dad I found someone who makes me happy, and I want to be able to say after a long day that I’m just going to go home and be with you instead of having to make something up to get out of going out with Nikki and the guys. But this, Temple, it’s not about that. It’s about needing direction, and needing that something bigger. It’s—it’s my version of math, okay? I’m not saying I’m going to become a rabbi, just that it’s the place I’m looking for to get that --- more. You love me, but you have to have your math, too, right? It gives you something that I can’t, but that doesn’t make me, doesn’t make what we have, any less.”  
  
He can almost see the wheels turning in Charlie’s head but finally he nods. “Okay,” he says quietly. “Just—I know talking isn’t your favorite thing but could you say something to me next time?”  
  
“I will. But Charlie, you have to trust me, too. I love you. I know my track record with fidelity isn’t very good, but I am trying.”  
  
“I know. I’m sorry. I just never thought your secret rendezvous was going to be with a rabbi.”  
  
Don smiles and leans in for a kiss. “I love you. And I will try and talk to you in the future.”  
  
“Thanks. Do you think—do you think I could go with you, sometime?”  
  
“To temple?”  
  
“Yeah.” Charlie shrugs, looking a little uncomfortable. “I’m not sure that I really believe, but it’s important to you, so I’d like to at least try to understand. Unless it’s one of those things you just want to do alone…”  
  
Don makes himself think about it before answering. “Right now, buddy, it kind of is one of those things I think I need to do alone. But maybe next month, if you’re still interested…I’d really like for you to come with me.”  
  
Charlie relaxes and smiles. “Okay.” He curls up next to Don, squirming and tugging until he’s got Don’s arm around him and he’s pressed up against his side, happy as a clam. Don turns on the TV and finds a game.  
  
“You know, there’s a lot of math in Judaism.”  
  
Don smiles and rubs his chin against Charlie’s curls. “Yes, Charlie. I know.”


End file.
